Albanese’s response to Bondi shattered a central promise – and exposed familiar patterns

Anthony Albanese’s handling of the Bondi terror attack has shattered a central promise of his prime ministership: that he could be trusted to lead when it mattered.

At moments of national trauma, leaders are judged less on ideology than on instinct, clarity over cleverness, authority over tactics. On that test, a majority of Australians now believe Albanese failed.

More than half of respondents in the latest Resolve Monitor poll – 56 per cent – rate his response to Bondi as poor. Just 32 per cent say it was good. It is a savage assessment of a leader who, until recently, had prided himself on being trusted and steady.

The political consequences are immediate and severe. Labor’s primary vote has fallen five points in a month to 30 per cent – its lowest level since before it began clawing back support last February before a stunning May election win.

Albanese’s personal ratings have nosedived with it. His net performance is now minus 22, his net likeability minus 15, both the worst results in a year. On leadership, competence and communication, voters have marked him down across the board.

This is not just the electorate being fickle, it is voters delivering a coherent verdict: the prime minister dithered, flip-flopped and politicised a crisis that demanded decisiveness and moral clarity.

Bondi exposed familiar patterns rather than creating them. First came the prolonged resistance to a royal commission into antisemitism, despite mounting pressure from the Jewish community, business leaders and sports stars. Then the abrupt capitulation, dressed up as something that had supposedly been in the works all along.

In the past week came the rushed and deeply flawed legislative package bundling gun laws with hate speech provisions, followed by yet another backdown when political support collapsed.

Each retreat reinforced the sense that Albanese was being dragged to decisions rather than leading them.

Resolve political analyst Jim Reed says the poll shows voters are now openly questioning the prime minister’s competence and consistency. That judgment is borne out in the raw numbers: the proportion of voters who think Albanese is doing a good job has fallen from 48 per cent pre-Bondi to just 34 per cent, while those who believe he is performing poorly have surged to 56 per cent. Trust, once lost, is hard to regain.

What makes this more damaging is the comparison voters are drawing with Opposition Leader Sussan Ley.

For weeks, Ley has been accused by government figures and sections of the media of opportunism, of “going hard” and playing politics in the aftermath of tragedy. Yet voters have reached a very different conclusion. Despite all the criticism, 53 per cent of respondents believe Ley’s response to Bondi was good. Just 29 per cent rate it as poor.

In other words, a majority of Australians believe the opposition leader – with no executive power and leading a divided Coalition – came closer to getting it right than the prime minister of the day.

That does not mean Ley has emerged triumphant. Her own approval ratings have softened, and Resolve shows voters remain unconvinced she offers a fully formed alternative. Her preferred prime minister numbers have improved largely because Albanese has fallen, not because she has surged. Even Reed notes the perception that she has been heavy on politics and light on policy detail.

But in the defining leadership test since Christmas, Ley has defied her critics. Against Albanese, voters judged her instincts as the more sound.

A problem for both is the record number of voters, now at 42 per cent, who wouldn’t give their first vote to either Labor or the Coalition. And now it seems they are both bleeding support to One Nation. The Greens have slipped further.

The protest vote is consolidating elsewhere and Pauline Hanson is the beneficiary. Her party One Nation’s primary vote has surged to 18 per cent, its strongest result on record, up four points in a month and now almost three times its vote at the last election. On current preference flows, that rise is narrowing the two-party-preferred contest to 52–48, despite the Coalition’s failure to significantly lift its own primary vote.

The early recall of parliament and the emergency legislation were meant to draw a line under the crisis. Instead, they deepened the impression of a government lurching from position to position.

Ley has not escaped damage. The Coalition remains fractured and restless. But ultimately, this poll is about the prime minister. Albanese owns the response. And voters, in unmistakable terms, are telling him he did not measure up.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter.